


D.I.A.F

by YoungMrKusuma



Series: The Naekawa Project [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Despair, F/M, Fluff, I'M GONNA MAKE THIS SHIP SAIL IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO, rarepair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4170873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoungMrKusuma/pseuds/YoungMrKusuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Partially inspired by this post on tumblr: http://kouristar.tumblr.com/post/86966582355</p>
<p>Just a little drabble I thought up. Naegi takes Fukawa out on a coffee shop date, where she makes known her opinions about PDAs and other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	D.I.A.F

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is going to be very dialogue-heavy, so... yeah. Heads-up if you hate that sort of thing.
> 
> Concrit would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to tell me what you think (especially if you think it sucks).
> 
> (Link to Tumblr post [here](http://youngmrkusuma.tumblr.com/post/139648594883/the-naekawa-project-part-2-diaf))

The young woman at the cash register must have been having a rough day, Naegi decided. That was why she was so grouchy. The whole time she was taking his order, she had been wearing the sourest expression he'd ever seen on a human face. And when you consider that he was dating Touko Fukawa, that was saying something.

She had given him a forced " _Hello-welcome-to-Sawashiro's-can-I-take-your-order?_ " through gritted teeth. She got visibly irritated when he dropped his wallet on the counter while paying for the coffee and didn't return his smile when he said thank you. As soon as he was done, she had half-yelled "NEXT" to the customer behind him, electing to forget he ever existed.

_Misaki_ , her nametag had read. She must have been new here. Naegi was sure he'd never seen her before. Maybe it was the lack of training or that her boss was giving her a hard time that made her this way. None of the other workers, as far as he knew, acted like this.

Not that it mattered, anyway. He wasn't about to let her behaviour ruin his day.

He brought the drinks over to a table by the store’s front window where Fukawa was seated with her laptop, working on her latest masterpiece. Her attention wasn't on the computer screen, but on another table at the other end of the coffee shop. A couple their age was seated there, looking like something from out of a cheesy romance movie. The girl was giggling rather loudly while the boy brought her hand to his lips. Fukawa was glaring at them.

"Stupid show-offs," she muttered. "Go die in a fire."

She didn't seem to notice Naegi was there until he chuckled. "That's not a very nice thing to say, Touko-chan."

She huffed. "I wasn't trying to be nice. I mean, l-look at them! T-They're just trying to – ah, thank you," she took the drink he handed to her, "– just trying to b-brag to the whole world about just how _happy_ and how _in love_ they are." She shook her head. “Show-offs.”

"They aren't harming anybody," Naegi said, taking his seat. "They’re just teenagers being teenagers."

She scoffed and took a sip of her coffee.

"Besides, don't the characters in your books do the same thing?"

An expression of grave offense crossed her face. "They do _not_!"

He raised an eyebrow.

Fukawa became flustered. "I-I-It’s d-different with my s-s-stories!! Completely d-different! When K-Kushieda did it with Kawashima, it was spur-of-the-moment! It was _genuine_! They weren’t d-doing it j-just so everyone could see them!"

"Uh huh." He rested his cheek on his hand, giving her the most patronizing look he could muster.

"A-And it wasn’t because of some fakey-teen-love bullshit you see with kids these days! What my characters go through are a million times more real than anything they –" she pointed scornfully at the showy couple. "–could ever imagine!"

"Really."

"Yes, really!" She continued, gesticulating wildly with her hands. "What they’re feeling isn’t love, it’s just hormones! Just you watch; those two morons over there will probably break up after a week of this charade. It's hollow, it's insincere, and it's..."

She finally noticed that he was teasing her and made a swat at him. He laughed as he shied out of her reach.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry." Naegi held his hands up defensively. She swatted at him some more. Fukawa didn’t hit very hard, but she made up for it with sheer volume. It took a full minute or so for her to let up.

"S-some boyfriend you are," she grumbled.

Normally, that would have been it; Fukawa didn’t stay upset for long whenever Naegi poked fun at her (something he had grown increasingly fond of doing). It was part of an ongoing effort of his to get her to cheer up and she knew it. But this time, her agitation didn’t recede. She turned away from him to stare out the window, pouting for the better part of ten minutes. Her coffee went untouched. It would have taken a lot more than some PDA and light teasing to do that.

Something else was troubling her. He could tell.

“Touko-chan,” he asked. “What’s bothering you?”

“What do you mean ‘What’s bothering me’, you idiot?” She retorted without facing him. “I’ve already told you what’s bothering me.”

Naegi wasn’t fooled. He slid his hand across the table to meet hers. She didn’t push him away. “What’s _really_ bothering you?”

Her mask of haughty righteous anger held fast for several moments, then softened, and then melted away. The expression that had replaced it told him everything. She wasn’t annoyed; she was tired and frustrated.

She turned to the laptop. “It’s this s-stupid fucking novel!” She hissed. “I’ve spent week after week trying to get this... this _thing_ right and still it reads like g-garbage! Every scene is wrong! T-The dialogue is a mess, my characters are flat... Nothing here is as I envisioned! It’s like a four year old wrote this!”

She started pulling at her hair.

“And those two idiots are NOT HELPING!!”

Almost as if on cue, a loud high-pitched giggle rang out from the girl from the other table.

“I-I don’t know how to f-fix this...” she said, her exasperation deflating. “It’s like... every time I c-correct something, I find something else that needs changing. Whenever I reread it, I just...” she choked. “I feel like such a failure...”

Naegi hadn’t waited for her to finish before moving over to sit by her side. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

“Don’t say that... you’re not a failure at all.”

"Y-yes, I a-am." Her voice was soft and quivery, as if she were on the verge of tears. Fukawa pointed to the laptop. "R-read that and t-tell me that it isn't the most id-idiotic thing you've ever seen."

A Word document was open on screen, already some seventy-five pages long. Naegi scrolled up to the first one, and began to read. He stroked her shoulder soothingly as he did. A stifled sob escaped her once every few minutes. After about ten pages or so, he said "I honestly don't see what the problem is. Your work's as good as it's always been."

A moment of silence from her.

"Liar." She said quietly.

"You know I'm not." He said.

"Well, t-then what about this part here?" She scrolled down several pages and pointed to the screen.

He read some more. "This part's fine too."

She scrolled down again. "And here?"

"Seems okay to me."

"And here?"

He smiled after a minute. "That's the cutest thing I've seen all day." Her cheeks turned red.

"How... H-How do I know that you're not just trying to make me feel b-better?"

He brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "I don't have to lie to do that."

She bit her lip. "W-What if you're wrong, then? What if y-you're the only one who thinks this is a-any good?"

"I haven't been wrong about your work so far." He watched as Fukawa pondered the thought internally. It was true, what he said. He hadn't been wrong about her work before. They had a conversation not unlike this one with her previous novel. She had been so convinced that it would be a flop ( _Trash_ , she had called it. _Uninspired tripe not fit for print_ ), but he told her otherwise. It had ended up winning two awards and received glowing reviews from a number of critics.

It was awhile before she spoke again. “I wish I... I wish I could believe you...”

“You don’t have to believe me,” he told her. And when she looked at him questioningly, he said “Just believe in yourself.”

The statement seemed to take her by surprise.

Then, a small miracle unfolded before his eyes; Fukawa actually started to laugh. Not that tense, uneasy titter he was so used to hearing, but a sweet, unabashed giggle that made his heart skip a beat.

“That,” she said, “was the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Naegi couldn’t help but grin. “Harsh. And here I was, trying to cheer you up.”

She rolled her eyes, but gave him a small smile. Before he could react, she pecked him quickly on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she said. Her words were warm and sincere. “I mean it. Thank you.”

Fukawa was back to typing almost immediately, her fingers blazing across the keyboard with renewed fervour. Stress and self-doubt had given way to excitement; she was inspired now. She ignored the inane chatter from the couple on the other table and focused entirely on her writing. Periodically, she reached for her coffee – which had long since gone cold – and drank in deep gulps. Naegi watched her fondly. When he got up to move back to his original seat, she stopped and suggested shyly that he was welcome to stay right beside her if he wanted. He smiled and did just that.

Neither of them noticed the pair of eyes staring at them from beyond the store window.

*

Hana Misaki, the grouchy cashier, had indeed been having a rough day, but that had very little to do with why she was grouchy. Anyone who knew her would tell you; they had never once seen her be anything _other_ than grouchy. Her mother ( _goddamn that woman,_ she thought) was always fond of saying that a smile every once in a while wouldn’t kill her. She hated that saying. Hated it with every fibre of her being. As a matter of fact, Misaki was pretty sure she hated everything.

It was certainly true about this stinking place. She hated Sawashiro’s and all that it stood for; the tacky uniforms; the dickwad who called himself the manager; the fancy-ass names for cakes and drinks that neither she nor the damn customers could even pronounce. If she hadn’t been so short on cash, she wouldn’t have bothered with this dump.

And maybe she shouldn’t have, in the end. Not even a week of employment, and they probably already wanted her fired.

Well, good riddance. This place could kiss her uncaring ass. If there was one good thing about today, it was that her shift was over, thank Christ. To hell with it all; the fancy drinks, the uniform, the manager. And most of all, the goddamn teenagers.

As if she needed anymore reminders that she didn’t have anybody.

She casted a final glance at the store. Through the window she saw a girl with dusky purple hair in twin braids and that annoyingly cheerful boy with the hoodie. He had an arm around her shoulder and they were both smiling, looking _oh so happy_ and _oh so in love_. Ugh. Just like every other brat in this place who couldn’t wait to get a room. She felt all the bitterness inside her rise up like bile.

"Stupid show-offs," she muttered as she left. "Go die in a fire."

**Author's Note:**

> I’m gonna be honest with you guys; I’m not very proud of this one. The pacing of this story feels off even after numerous tweaks and it doesn’t sound nearly as funny as I thought it would. But I’ve decided I’m not going to keep fucking around with it, because frankly it’s getting tedious doing so. I thought it best to let everyone else decide for themselves if it’s any good.
> 
> But enough about that. Thanks everyone, for at least reading this far. Let me know in the comments what you thought.


End file.
